This interest was stimulated by observations that cadherin-11 is expressed on multiple fibroblast populations, including dermal and lung fibroblasts, and two independent microarray studies of systemic sclerosis skin biopsies demonstrated increased cadherin-11 mRNA levels in fibrotic skin (Whitfield et al., 2003; Gardner et al., 2006). Here, CDH11 is linked to systemic sclerosis.